Law Schools, Not Apprenticeships, Best Provide for Real World Needs

Linda Sheryl Greene is the Evjue-Bascom Professor of Law at the University of Wisconsin Law School. She was the inaugural Vice Chancellor for Equity Diversity and Inclusion at the University of California San Diego.
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Updated July 31, 2014, 3:28 PM

The opportunity to qualify for a bar examination by “reading law” as an apprentice provides an experiential approach that may be attractive to some potential lawyers, especially those who gravitate to the field late in life. It could help those who are put off by the high cost of law school, who prefer learning by direct experience, and who need to study locally if a willing lawyer or judge mentor is available.

But despite requirements by some state bar associations that apprentices spend a certain amount of time in formal law school and have periodic examinations and reports, this approach is not adequate preparation to practice law in a complex society.

Combing experience and instruction gives students an understanding of complex social, economic and ethical issues.

The experiential basis of apprenticeships does touch on an issue of importance for the profession, though. Over the past half-century many law schools have emphasized the importance of learning through practice in simulations, externships and legal clinics. Experiential learning, integrated with formal classroom study, exposes students to multiple forms of legal practice -- from private firms to state and city attorneys’ offices, to prisons and international organizations – and gives them insight into the economic and racial strata of our society.

Students benefit from the intellectual and technological capital of a law school with the social and the cultural capital they receive from clients, lawyers, practitioners, and institutions. Students become involved with the exciting and dynamic learning environment they will enter upon graduation.

But does even this approach meet the needs of an ever more complex and diverse society?
In a report in 2007, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching said that while law school students are provided with fine in-depth analysis of cases, they have little opportunity to grasp the complexity of legal problems as well as questions of justice, morality, ethics, and professional integrity.

Since 2008, the economic slowdown has reduced demand for law schools and lawyers, this is a good time to broadly reconsider the legal needs of society and the way lawyers will meet those needs.

While it might seem that programs like apprenticeships would provide prospective lawyers with the sharpest connection to real-world issues, I have faith that the best law schools will most effectively integrate moral, ethical and justice concerns through theory and experience.